There is a horrific stench permeating Villa right now. The inertia in the boardroom and the muddled thinking in the dugout infected the dressing room some time ago – it’s no surprise results have taken a nosedive.

Everything is up in the air at the moment. No-one knows who will own the club next season, who the manager will be or even what league we’ll be in.

If that happens, so it’s said, the mooted takeover is off – and that will have much longer-term ramifications.

So, however undignified it may be, it’s simply about stumbling over the line. Securing our Premier League status is the first step to lifting the haze of confusion which surrounds our club.

However, we’ve been a handful of points away from safety for a while now.

Packing up in the press box after the win over Chelsea six weeks ago, I said to a very well known former-Villa-striker-turned-commentator: ‘That should make us safe now’. He nodded. (Oh yes, my celeb anecdotes are the stuff of legend…)

I think we were naively assuming we might get at least a couple of points out of Stoke and Fulham at home and Crystal Palace and Swansea away. We got none.

So now it comes down to Hull’s visit to Villa Park next Saturday. We quite literally can’t afford to have a bad day.

It had all started so promisingly, with the win at Arsenal and the good display in defeat at Chelsea.

Then Jores Okore busted his knee, Christian Benteke did his hip in and wasn’t the same for four months and disaster followed disaster.